Daveslist Volume 3 Issue 20
How to make better digital decisions
Heeeeeeeeey!
I had a gloriously Partridge-esque start to the year with a 3 night stay in Slough’s Holiday Inn. I wonder where I shall end up next?
Making better digital decisions
I made this video to help explain my take on decision making and governance in digital work within councils and other similar organisations. It’s something a lot of places struggle with, and I hope it helps.
Most of the time, decision making (particularly around digital) doesn’t work.
People don’t understand how to ask for things, or how to get them approved
There are onerous forms, things take too long to decide, and then get prioritised away into the distant future
There’s a lack of understanding of exactly what is being worked on, and why it is being done instead of 100s of other things
People in digital are making prioritisation decisions that ought to be made way higher up the food chain
People do their best to avoid it and do their own thing, which usually doesn’t work either.
What does good decision making look like?
It’s proportionate
It’s open and transparent
It involves the right people
It’s based on commonly accepted principles
It helps to achieve strategic goals
It’s future-proofed
It produces the right results and outcomes
Find out the rest on the video. You can download the slides, if you want to repurpose them. By all means do, but please credit me back!
6 week online digital success course – only £299!
I’m running an online course about making a success of digital in your organisation, which will start in the next few weeks. There are still some places available, and if you might be interested, have a look and book your place!
This unique learning experience takes place over 6 weeks, and will give all participants an engaging overview of the key elements of improving their digital, design, data and technology offer within their organisation.
Each week features an online seminar, lasting an hour, which will deliver high quality advice and guidance from the course leader, and opportunities for discussion, sharing and collaboration.
Additionally, every learner will get the opportunity to have 2 half hour one to one conversations with the course leader to enable them to receive individual coaching.
This will be backed up with a private online community, where resources can be accessed, further discussions held, and exercises shared for learners to complete.
The programme:
Week 1 - Strategy and leadership
Week 2 - Technology and data
Week 3 - Design and delivery
Week 4 - Culture and skills
Week 5 - Teams and structures
Week 6 - Next steps and making things happen
How much?
This is the first time the course is being run, and so is available at a discount.
The course costs £299 per person. This gives:
Access to the 6 weekly 1 hour online seminars, and the 2 half hour individual one to ones
Lifetime access to the learning materials, including presentations, templates, guides and videos
Access to a dedicated online learning community with the rest of the cohort for 12 months following the end of the course with the full participation of the course leader
This issue’s links
Giles thinks learning materials in organisations ought to be better quality, and of course he is right.
“Not another ‘is design thinking dead?’ blog post”
Simon Wardley shares some thoughts on project delivery that are well worth reading.
The Future Councils Playbook is a “set of tools to help you understand complex problems and their impact”. These are useful of course, and as much good practice support we can get out there the better. But a step change in local government digital quality is unlikely to result from such things – we need more.
“User Centred IT: Why ‘best practice’ isn’t good enough in the domain of IT” (via NeillyNeil).
“Sharing our learning from SDinGov 2023” – some lovely nuggets in here from the service transformation team at Essex County Council.
“How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu”
“How we’re making it easier to access government forms online”
“How can we get to a single shareable patient record?”
“Designing service at scale” – loads of good reflection and advice in here.
This from Dai Vaughan is really excellent on how technology failures keep damaging people’s lives, and how frustrating it is that the answers to this problem are well known, but unevenly implemented.
Mike Bracken’s take on Horizon.
Well done for making it this far! Here’s your reward: one dimensional pacman.
That’s it for this issue. Don’t forget to hit reply if you have any feedback, or forward this on to anyone you think may enjoy it.
Also, if I can help you with anything, you can hire me!
Until next time,
Dave ❤️